Bioethics and Structural Injustice

• Applicant: Dr. Regina Müller
• Subject Area: Practical Philosophy
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 549443382

The COVID-19 pandemic has made structural injustice regarding healthcare and medicine more visible than ever. In the international research literature, there is increasing discussion of equal access to health services, fair distribution of medical resources and research findings, and discrimination-sensitive treatments, with attention to various social categories, such as gender, race, and age. However, structural discrimination and the health needs of members of marginalized social groups have not been addressed as core issues in mainstream bioethics, and theoretical and methodological questions in this context remain. In particular, these topics have been underrepresented in German-language medical ethics debates. The network will address structurally oriented bioethics, combining theories and methods from public health ethics, feminist theories, Black bioethics, disability bioethics, and queer studies. It will bring together disciplines that are affected by bioethical issues (e.g., philosophy, medical ethics and history, medicine, psychology, sociology, public health, and gender studies). The network will work on current bioethical issues with a special focus on processes of intersectional marginalization, focusing on the relationship between structural justice and bioethics. The goals of the network are the development of aspects of structurally oriented bioethics, the application of these aspects to current problems in medicine and healthcare, and interdisciplinary networking of (early-career) researchers in Germany. The network is planned to last three years and to include several events: one kick-off meeting, two workshops on best practices in scientific research, four topic-specific events, and one international conference. The results of the network will be published in various forms, with different target audiences, and available in a peer-reviewed special issue, as well as public blog posts and a public lecture series.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Mirjam Faissner